The first study in Canada believed to look at serious weight problems — in toddlers — suggests one in four 18-month-olds is already overweight, obese or at risk of becoming overweight.

Experts say the “alarming” study shows the trend they were already seeing in older age groups is now extending down to the under two’s, resurrecting the question, who’s responsible when a toddler gets so heavy he has trouble moving?

One Toronto pediatrician says he is already seeing obese three- and five-month-old children.

Until now, there has been a dearth of data on rates of overweight children and obesity for those under three, the research team writes in this week’s issue of CMAJ Open.

“We knew that early childhood is the critical time for obesity prevention strategies,” said lead author Suzanne Biro, a former research associate in the department of family medicine at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. “If we intervene earlier, it’s easier to change the trajectory of weight gain.”

The study looked at weight and height (or length) measures for 8,261 children younger than 20 years taken from a sample of electronic medical records from family doctors and pediatricians in Ontario.

The study found that, overall in 2013, 28 per cent of children ages five to 19 were categorized as overweight or obese.

It’s really not an issue of parents not caring or being lazy. They’re just navigating a world where the odds are stacked against them

The researchers also extracted just more than 1,500 billing codes for 18-month “well baby visits” — a routine checkup — between 2008 and 2013. About seven per cent of this group was categorized as overweight or obese; 19 per cent were considered at risk of becoming overweight.

The researchers caution their study can’t be considered representative of Canadian children. However, their sample size was almost four times larger than the latest national survey to estimate overweight and obesity rates in children and teens — the 2009 to 2011 cycle of Statistic Canada’s Canadian health measures survey. As well, the StatsCan survey included only children aged three or older.

“Data speaks,” said Dr. Catherine Birken, who runs an obesity treatment program for children under six at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, in collaboration with Toronto Public Health.

“I see these children in my clinical practice. So yes, it’s a problem,” Birken said.

The average height of a two-year-old is 86 centimetres (2-foot-8), explains Dr. Dan Flanders, a Toronto pediatrician at North York General Hospital who specializes in obesity and nutrition. A normal weight for a child this height is about 11.5 kilograms, or 25 pounds.

Serious health risks in obese toddlers are rare, he said. “But certainly we have five- and six-year-olds who have life-threatening conditions” such as severe sleep apnea or uncontrolled diabetes, he said.

With toddlers, “we certainly see more subtle stuff.” Heavy toddlers may have trouble reaching their “developmental milestones,” he said. “It’s harder to stand up, harder to walk, harder to run.”

“Probably by age two or three they might start to feel some of the shaming that people deliver to obese people — jokes that might be told about them by daycare providers, or their parents,” he added. “So, there’s some psychological risk there.”

Flanders is careful not to blame parents. “It’s really not an issue of parents not caring or being lazy. They’re just navigating a world where the odds are stacked against them,” including the ubiquitous availability of “cheap, crappy foods” that are heavily marketed to parents.

“Imagine how challenging it would be for a single mom who’s barely making it to serve fresh steamed vegetables and lean meat and a freshly cut salad,” said Flanders. “Our environment isn’t designed in a way to make that realistic, and helpful or easy. It makes more sense to stop at the drive-through and get your kids fed so they stop whining.”

Other times, food becomes a fallback to deal with temper tantrums, he said.

What’s most important, he said, “is figuring out what’s the most effective and humane way to approach this problem,” including more social services for families and regulating how high-fat, sugary foods are marketed to parents and children.

“Conveying a message to parents that it’s their personal responsibility and they need to ‘get it together and become better parents’ isn’t fair,” he said.

A controversial commentary published in a top medical journal in 2011 suggested parents should lose custody of children with life-threatening obesity. In cases where parenting training or counselling fail, “placement of the severely obese child under protective custody warrants discussion,” the authors argued.

“Despite a well-established constitutional right of parents to raise their children as they chose, the state may intervene to protect the child’s interest.”

There have been a handful of state interventions in the U.S. and elsewhere. In 2011, an eight-year-old Ohio boy weighing 200 pounds was placed in foster care after child welfare workers said the mother wasn’t doing enough to control his weight, according to The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio. Two years ago, the British paper The Guardian reported police had arrested the parents of an 11-year-old weighing 210 pounds on suspicion of neglect.

Renowned bioethicist Arthur Caplan says that, unlike starving a child, over-feeding a toddler doesn’t rise to the level of parental negligence unless “you’re into extreme morbid obesity” and there is an immediate threat to life.

“But we do have an obligation to step in and try help this child,” said Caplan, director of the division of medical ethics at New York University Langone Medical Centre.

So you’ve binged on Olympic coverage and now you’re looking at your offspring wondering: does he have what it takes to own the podium? Of course the better question for parents is: do you have what it takes to be supportive without being a killjoy?

Can you encourage striving for its own sake and forget about whether or not your son makes the NHL? Can you resist the temptation to send your daughter on the “Do you know how much that leotard cost!” guilt trip? Can you accept your child just wants to kick a ball around for an hour, have fun with friends and nothing more?

Most importantly, do you have the guts to defend the dignity of officials and coaches who are routinely upbraided by a small but vocal minority of parents whose bullying behaviour can undermine the vitality of amateur sport?

“If we can give parents the right vocabulary to keep their kids in sport, more talent will rise to the top — but let’s hope we don’t turn them off when they’re 10 years old,” says Wayne McNeil, co-founder of Respect Group Inc. which provides online abuse-, bullying- and harassment-prevention education to sport and other organizations.

This week I became one of more than 550,000 parents and coaches in Canada to take the Respect in Sport course. If you have $12 and one hour you, too, can learn what not to say to your future Olympian during the car ride home, which, incidentally, includes avoiding the “O-word” unless he says it first.

It’s curious: 99 per cent of people will only ever play sports at a recreational level. A few will achieve a moderate level of success without ever making it “all the way.” And yet that hunger to make it to the big leagues is still one of the most common parent pitfalls. Others include: setting unrealistic goals and expectations, living vicariously through your child, guilt-tripping, and less than graceful losing.

Kevin Kobelka, executive director of Hockey Calgary, which in 2010 became the first minor hockey association in Canada to make the Respect in Sport training program mandatory, says, “Any time you hear the success stories, it’s always about the support, the leadership, the guidance. It’s never, ‘Gee, my dad forced me to run 20 miles.’ We can’t force kids to be something they’re not.”

The challenge for sport organizations, says Kobelka, is seeing the wisdom in driving cultural change in spite of the knee-jerk reaction to education and awareness programs parents sometimes perceive as pointless. He likes to remind people that respect training isn’t just about curtailing raucous behaviour in the stands. Less obvious, but far more damaging, is the unhealthy sport vocabulary many of us inherited from our own parents.

Janet Horyn/Edmonton Examiner

Respect training is an opportunity to reframe old ways of thinking and how you talk to your child in the car on the way home. Kobelka says, “You might be trying to help but are actually destroying their experience of the game.” My parents always called that long and painful ride home a “post-mortem.” It wasn’t until I got hooked on Jack Klugman’s Quincy that I figured out it meant an autopsy.

Kobelka’s remedy of choice for the “You did well … but (insert something the coach already said here)” goes something like this: Kid: “How did I do dad?” Dad: “I just love to watch you play.”

In the decade since they first launched the Respect in Sport program, McNeil says progress, in terms of incident prevention, is hard to measure. His metric of choice is the mandatory exit survey where a full 85 per cent say the course made them more child-centred. “People tell me, ‘I wish I’d taken it years ago,’ ” says McNeil, “because they know they crossed the line and want to go back and relive it.”

That’s how I felt at the halfway point, when the slide show illuminated the fraught world of volunteer coaching and officiating. My cheeks burned red with shame remembering the crusty email I sent my local soccer association this past May about my son getting the “short end of the coaching stick.”

Competition can bring out the best in people, until it doesn’t. The Respect Group says bullying and abuse from parents is the No. 1 cause for the alarmingly high turnover rates in officiating, in particular, upwards of 30 per cent in hockey annually and 40 per cent in soccer. McNeil says these are mostly young people, looking to get experience, who “get harassed out of the sport mostly due to threatening commentary from the sidelines.”

When parents cross the line and their emotions get the best of them, Respect in Sport wants to see bystanders step up. As noted in one of the slides, “It’s your job to intervene.”

Whether writ large on the world stage, at a university stadium where an athletic scholarship has made a difference, or at a community field where a game without tears is a major achievement, there are so many people who contribute to the joy and excellence of the sporting life: parents, coaches, referees and countless volunteers.

All of these people need good tools to foster healthy communication — which isn’t always natural and doesn’t always come easy. Respect is the key: give it, get it, everybody wins.

The 20th century gave us the supposedly corrupting influences of rock ‘n’ roll and television. The 21st century’s burden on parenthood is technology and the battle over screen time.

The war analogy is apt. My husband and I have spent the past three years hunkered down in our foxhole, periodically reviewing our digital combat strategy: do we retreat, surrender or continue to hold our ground?

Are we saving our nine-year-old from a gaming addiction? Is limiting screen time a productive crusade — or a futile, backward-looking endeavour? Is it worth the day-to-day exhaustion of haggling over minutes and hours and the incessant, “Why can’t I have more time?” to forge a healthy digital lifestyle?

The notion of digital disengagement is enticing and I met a heroic young family recently who is doing exactly that. “What about school?” I asked, genuinely curious. Thanks to the government-approved “gamification” of education — learning disguised as gaming — and the introduction of classroom tech as early as first grade, there is enormous pressure on families to get with the digital program, even if they’d prefer to postpone it a while.

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“Tech-free private school” was the answer. That’s a little rich for my blood, which leaves heading for the bush as the best and cheapest unplugging alternative.

In an interview for PBS News Hour, Dr. Delaney Ruston, director and producer of the January 2016 documentary Screenagers said the “message of zero tolerance” doesn’t work, “let’s just take everything away and get mad” misses the point. Technology is here to stay and hiding in the hills, or retreating to the bosom of an old-school private school, are temporary solutions.

At some point, our offspring will discover they can hold the whole world in their hands and that’s exactly what they’ll want to do.

But the inevitability of an immersive digital life doesn’t mean capitulating to unrestricted screen time at an early age. Digital engagement rates among young people are on a steady upward trajectory: either some parents are giving up the fight, or they’ve lost it altogether.

FotoliaPublic education advocates say most dollars go to teachers because they are the heart of the classroom.

The percentage of students who spent five or more hours on social media per day increased between 2013 and 2015, from 11 per cent to 16 per cent. One in 10 students plays video games for five hours or more per day, and the number of students showing symptoms of Internet Gaming Disorder — which includes loss of control, withdrawal, escape and disregard for consequences — has increased by nine per cent since 2007.

These are only some of the more alarming findings from the 2015 Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey, released last month by the Canadian Association of Mental Health, which shows that young people are investing more and more of their precious time — or wasting it, depending on your point of view — on digital technologies.

For parents, giving up is not a viable option, and yet the pursuit of balance, which is the best and only way forward, seems almost impossible.

In the digital age, technological proficiency has become coterminous with success and progress, which causes angst for many parents. To borrow from gaming terminology, they want to see their kids “level-up”: to keep pace with their peers and not fall behind on the digital superhighway.

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Initially I saw my son’s tablet — the digital bone-of-contention in my house these days — as a valuable learning tool, a competitive edge. Two years later, it’s so crowded with games, I can barely locate the math and reading programs we purchased. It’s safe to say I’ve become a tech-skeptic — much less afraid of Internet Learning Addiction (definitely not a trend) than Internet Gaming Disorder.

Not all tech time is created equal. Social media and gaming expertise will not help our kids get good grades in school or compete in a demanding global economy. The sooner we parents stop fooling ourselves about that the better.

The other problem with balance is it relies on parents “teaching self-control,” as Dr. Ruston emphasized in her documentary, and yet it’s a skill many of us do not possess — guilty as charged! — when it comes to our own tech use.

In the good old days, it was easy to tell kids not to run with scissors — another bright, shiny and potentially dangerous object if not used carefully — because mom and dad weren’t also running with scissors. We can’t say that about technology.

Getty ImagesChildren who spend too much time in front of TVs and computers tend to have more problems with obesity and developmental challenges than their more active peers. Counselling parents on reducing kids' screen time unfortunately didn't have much of an effect.

In her TED Talk, Connected: but alone?, Dr. Sherry Turkle, professor of psychology at MIT, said many people are “smitten with technology” and think “too much talking might spoil the romance,” even if evidence points to a loss of digital control as damaging our children and their ability to connect with the world around them.

My son has told me more than once, “I can tell when you’re not listening to me.” In these less-than-proud moments, I have to pull my head out of my laptop and face the truth about my own dysfunctional relationship with technology and my tendency to escape from the messy reality of life into an obedient world that obeys my every command.

In this fraught arena, setting a bad example may be the most corrupting influence of all.

The summer of 2016 may go down in history as one of the high points for those Canadian bureaucrats whose aim is to position themselves firmly between citizens and any hints of fun or enjoyment. From food trucks to swings to lemonade stands, Canada’s stern-browed public servants are there to ensure standards are maintained in the face of the human impulse to enjoy life.

Indeed, even fellow bureaucrats are not immune. City of Ottawa bylaw officers recently cracked down on popular food trucks that have been gathering outside the Global Affairs Canada headquarters on Sussex Drive, where good and varied meals are hard to find during the workday.

Whether it should matter that Gavin Buchan, the man behind the food trucks, is a medal-winning Canadian hero who survived a mine explosion in Kosovo, will be a question for each of us to judge on our own. It seems plausible that — even if the trucks are causing “congestion” in the little-used parking lot where they’ve been gathering, as the bylaw department claims — some flexibility is called for, given both Buchan’s service and the delight the trucks have brought to the white-collar workers slogging their way through another dull load of paperwork at Global Affairs.

JULIE OLIVER/POSTMEDIA NETWORKEliza Andrews, 7, right, and her little sister Adela, 5, had their lemonade stand shut down by the National Capital Commission.

For now though, Buchan’s run-in with common-sense-starved regulators should be remembered as one of the less-ridiculous of the bureaucratic stupidities that have been making the rounds this season. It is certainly surpassed by the impressive showing of the National Capital Commission (NCC) — also based in Ottawa, as the name implies — which shut down a successful lemonade stand being run by five- and seven-year-old sisters who dared to offer refreshing beverages without the regulator’s blessing.

The girls were selling the drinks to passing roller-bladers and cyclists at $1 a glass to raise money for summer camp. Business was good until an NCC officer in a flak jacket arrived and told them they couldn’t sell anything on NCC property without a permit.

Interestingly enough, it’s not entirely clear the girls really were on NCC property. By setting up their stand on a median between an NCC-owned road and a city-owned road, the girls inadvertently gave themselves legal ammunition to fight the NCC’s claims. But the thing about elementary school entrepreneurs is that they tend not to go in for litigation. In any case, the NCC eventually backed down and apologized, perhaps more because of the outburst of public ridicule than fear of a legal battle.

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The disappointment and bad feelings that now stain the nation’s capital are rivalled by those in Calgary, where the city ended the fun of two little girls who had set up a swing on a tree branch in front of their house. Having seen the joy and smiles that small “free libraries” brought people who set them up in small boxes in front of neighbourhood homes, the girls figured it would be an equally uplifting gift to the community to provide an old-fashioned rope swing on a patch of grass near the curb that anyone could use. They hadn’t counted on an anonymous tipster turning them in to the city for violating a rule against attaching anything to a public tree. The city told them to take the friendly, cooperative playground favourite down as soon as possible.

It’s a close call — tree swing versus lemonade stand — but there is good reason to nominate the Calgary run-in with local pencil-pushers as the most absurd of the summer, so far, since the bureaucrats chose to stand their ground, making it clear that trees’ feelings take priority over people’s.

Here’s how Jeannette Wheeler, urban forestry lead for the city of Calgary, put it: “If you can imagine you were the tree, and you put your arm out and someone put some ropes onto you and started rubbing back and forth on a swing, that would start to chafe you.”

Wheeler is no doubt correct. Imagine how grass feels being cut, or flowers being plucked, or hedges being trimmed. Nonetheless, Wheeler and other municipal officials should keep in mind that a lot of us humans across the country are starting to feel a little chafed ourselves.

She has huge eyes, a tiny waist, high cheekbones and fancy dresses. She’s everywhere. And she could influence the way your child grows up.

She is, of course, the Disney princess.

Anyone who has heard a toddler screaming “Let It Go” knows the power of America’s favorite heroines. Analysts estimate Hasbro’s princess-doll empire is worth roughly $500 million. “Frozen” remains the highest grossing animated film of all time.

A new study sought to understand how this sparkly ubiquity shapes preschoolers’ attitudes about gender roles and body image. Researchers discovered that it has strong effects not only on girls but also boys. Heavy exposure to Disney princess culture correlated with more female-stereotypical behavior in both sexes a year later. Although that created potentially problematic behavior in girls – relegating them to playing with toys in the “girl aisle” – it had a moderating effect on boys, such as making them more helpful with classmates.

Walt Disney PicturesA new study shows girls aren't the only children affected by Disney princesses

The study of nearly 200 kids found nearly all of them knew about Disney princesses: 96 percent of girls and 87 percent of boys had consumed some form of princess-centric media. Gender differences opened wide, though, when it came to who actually played with the toys. Sixty-one percent of the girls interacted with the merchandise once per week, compared with 4 percent of the boys.

Sarah Coyne, an associate professor of family life at Brigham Young University, asked parents and teachers to report over a one-year period how often a child engaged with princess-related goods. She also wanted to record what types of toys the kids preferred (dolls, tea cups, tool sets, action figures), how they treated others and how they felt about their bodies.

Among girls, higher princess engagement was associated with stronger adherence to stereotypically feminine behavior. In other words, the 3- and 4-year-olds who loved Frozen’s Elsa, for example, were more likely to gravitate toward “girly” things, Coyne said. They wanted to play dress-up. They embraced frills. Most of their toys could be found in the “girls” aisle. “A lot of people say: ‘So what? We want our girls to be girly,'” Coyne said. “And there’s nothing inherently wrong with being feminine. But research has show a strong adherence to female gender stereotypes can be limiting across time.”

Girls and women who identify figuratively as “princesses,” Coyne said, tend to place a higher importance on appearance. They may forever chase an unattainable beauty ideal, a road that can lead to misery. They might not exert much effort in, say, math class, sabotaging a skill that could have blossomed into a successful engineering career.

Researchers noticed a more subdued effect among boys. Those with higher princess exposure were less likely to shun “girly” things for toy guns. They exhibited more balanced interests, which Coyne predicted will help them relate to others down the road. They also displayed more “prosocial behavior” at home and in the classroom, she said. Boys who watched movies such as “Frozen” or “Cinderella” were more likely to help out at school or share toys.

“Princess media and engagement may provide important models of femininity to young boys, who are typically exposed to hypermasculine media,” the researchers wrote. “It may be that boys who engage more with Disney Princesses, while simultaneously being exposed to more androgynous Disney princes, demonstrate more androgyny in early childhood, a trait that has benefits for development throughout the life span.”

Ng Han Guan / Associated PressA young girl gets a Princess makeover at the new Disney Resort in Shanghai, China, on June 15.

Neither gender showed signs of lower self-esteem or negative body image. Kids that young, the researchers concluded, generally do not feel self-conscious about their appearance. Coyne wants to interview the same group in five years, she said. Moreover, the majority (87 percent) of the sample was white, while 10 percent was Hispanic and 3 percent was “other.” It’s tough to say how, say, black or Asian children react to the sea of white faces. It’s worth pointing out that Disney princesses have evolved since 1950’s “Cinderella” and 1989’s “The Little Mermaid.” Elsa, for one, didn’t wait for a man to come rescue her from a fate of endless winter. (Her sister Anna actually knocked some sense into her.) And the arrow-shooting princess Merida in “Brave” saves her mother from being trapped in the body of a bear for all time.

They’re also becoming more racially diverse. The next Disney princess will be 2016’s Moana, a Pacific Islander who sets sail to find new land.

OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife have turfed one of the two taxpayer-funded nannies hired to take care of their three children and will personally pay for a new caregiver.

Marilou Trayvilla, one of two “special assistants” whose hiring by Trudeau and wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau sparked controversy because taxpayers were footing the bill, will leave her job July 1, according to a new cabinet order. The Prime Minister’s Office is not saying why she is being let go.

After months of criticism about Canadians paying for the Trudeau family’s caregivers, the Prime Minister’s Office said Tuesday the PM and his wife will pay the salary of a new caregiver themselves.

The other nanny remains part of the residence staff and will still be paid for by taxpayers.

“Adjustments to the prime minister’s household staff have been made. One of the two caregivers will no longer be working at the residence as of July 1,” Olivier Duchesneau, the prime minister’s deputy director of communications, said in an email to the Ottawa Citizen.

“That caregiver will be replaced with a person hired directly by the Prime Minister and Ms. Grégoire Trudeau. The status of the other caregiver remains unchanged.”

Trayvilla and Marian Puego were hired in November as special assistants in the prime minister’s residence. A significant part of their job is to look after the three Trudeau children, Hadrien, 2, Ella-Grace,7, and Xavier, 8.

They are paid $15 to $20 an hour during the day and $11 to $13 on the night shift.

Trudeau came under fire for weeks in the House of Commons for having the public fund his nannies, with the Conservatives demanding the prime minister pay for child-care out of his own pocket. Trayvilla and Puego worked as nannies for Trudeau when he was leader of the third party in the Commons.

Opposition parties have also been attacking Trudeau and the Liberals over what they see as a sense of entitlement in the government, which includes expensive and unnecessary foreign stops, hundreds of thousands of dollars to furnish a minister’s office, and Trudeau taking a day off during a trip to Japan to celebrate his wedding anniversary.

Documents tabled last month in the House of Commons show the two caregivers would cost taxpayers about $100,000 a year, not including the cost of travel with the family.

Between Nov. 4, 2015 and March 9, 2016, the caregivers were paid $30,851, according to the documents.

Having taxpayers foot the bill for the nannies was at odds with Trudeau’s claims during the election campaign that wealthy families like his didn’t need the enhanced Universal Child Care Benefit introduced by the Conservative government.

Trudeau is paid $340,800 annually as prime minister and lives for free at Rideau Cottage on the grounds of the Governor General’s estate, while 24 Sussex Drive is renovated.

Grégoire Trudeau said recently she has been flooded with requests for her time and needs more staff to help deal with the mounting number of public engagements. She said she has one staffer and works from her dining-room table.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/trudeaus-turf-one-taxpayer-funded-nanny-will-hire-new-one-on-own-dime/feed0stdTrudeaus-1Domestic bliss goes as quickly as it comes, but domestic ordeal loves to lingerhttp://news.nationalpost.com/arts/weekend-post/domestic-bliss-goes-as-quickly-as-it-comes-but-domestic-ordeal-loves-to-linger
http://news.nationalpost.com/arts/weekend-post/domestic-bliss-goes-as-quickly-as-it-comes-but-domestic-ordeal-loves-to-linger#respondThu, 26 May 2016 18:55:44 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=1111293

I recently heard something on the radio about how almost all children know how to lie by the age of four. You put them in a room with a gift in a bag, and tell them not to peek in the bag as you leave the room to go “get a bow.” When you return, ask them if they looked. Most will say no, even if they did. I tried it with Bea.

– Did you look, Bea?

– Yes I did, Mommy. I looked three times. But the only thing in this bag is soap, and I don’t think that is a very good present for anybody at all.

Bea is going through a phase of extreme truth-telling. This morning, as Mike was getting her ready for school, she kept on asking, “Daddy, are you fat?”

So Mike finally asked, “Bea, do you think I am fat?”

And Bea said, “Well, I’m just a kid, but maybe you could go to the diet restaurant.”

I don’t know what the diet restaurant is. But I do know that if, in Bea’s estimation, I needed to go there as well, I would not have to ask, she would just tell me.

This past Monday, while we were at the Victoria Day fireworks party on our street – possibly the most non-Quebecois (Victoria Day), non-Jewish (fireworks) event of my life, one in which I stood, surrounded by men in casual loafers and women in hairbands eating Nanaimo bars and watching a Home Depot planter filled with Roman candles nearly explode in the middle of our road – Bea said:

“Mommy, I don’t like your dress. It’s not nice.”

And then:

“Mommy, you actually smell like poo-poo.”

Now that Annie is over a year old, I have noticed the quiet entry of a state of domestic bliss. It comes in a little wave, settling over the nursery, ever so gently

I attributed the so-called poo-poo odour to the new body oil I had begun using. It’s pure sesame oil. I went to an Ayurvedic healer last week and the Ayurvedic healer told me that I needed to spend the rest of my life coated in oil — hair, face, body, everything — if only to create a barrier between me and the universe.

“You feel too keenly,” said the Ayurvedic.

As an assessment, this sounded extremely correct. And with healers of this sort, it’s so exciting when they get something about you right that you can expand the occurrence into a sign of their genius. It’s like seeing an astrologer or a palm reader. A woman in dangly earrings tells you that you are a creative person, and you think, “so true! I AM creative.” Then before you know it, you spend a whole year running a pointy magnet over the palm of your right hand in order to “encourage auspicious palm creases.”

But I’ll save that chapter in the catalogue of my idiocy for another column. Now, back to the oil. I had been walking around thinking I smelled like a delicious piece of halva, or at least a palatable bowl of tahini. I saw this as a bonus feature of my shimmering Vedic seed veil, the cosmic cushion for my oversensitive soul, the buffer against the chronic insult of the world at large.

So what if all the knobs in my house were greasy?

Watching a few fireworks piddle wanly out of the Home Depot planter, I offer Bea my arm. The dad in sockless loafers standing over the planter with a barbecue starter cries, “and now, is everyone ready for THE TITAN?!”

Sometimes, lately, now that Annie is over a year old, I have noticed the quiet entry of a state of domestic bliss. It comes in a little wave, settling over the nursery, ever so gently. Annie will be sitting on the rug, looking at a board book, with her fat legs sticking out and her toes wiggling with pleasure, singing her da-da-da-wi-wi-wi songs.

Bea will be standing at her dollhouse, making little beds for her tiny family, the members of which all say “oh yes,” and “pretty please” and “thank you very much.” I will be watching them, and watching the leaves of the giant oak outside the window shimmer in the sunshine. The smell of the lilac bush near the porch wafts up. Somewhere beyond, an owl hoots.

Experiencing the Titan’s failure to launch while my child calls me a turd in two different ways after a very long weekend – a weekend long in a way only possible for one spent with two very young children conceived too late in life – might qualify as the opposite of all that. There is domestic bliss. It goes as quickly as it comes. There is domestic ordeal, a state that loves to linger.

And what better time to experience this than over a long weekend? Once you finally lie down on the Monday night after a long weekend with little children, you cannot truly understand why every bone in your body aches.

Over the span of its life, my body has smith-pressed dozens of pounds for sets on end, it has endured god knows how many medical operations, it has waitressed 10-hour shifts in stupid shoes, it has stayed up consecutive nights because of deadlines or jet lag or both. How can this feel worse? I haven’t done anything. I’ve shepherded two tiny people through breakfast, lunch, dinner, monarchist fireworks, pajamas, teeth, bed.

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And here I had some kind of cushion. An exotic, Ayurvedic idea. A little bit of hope in a bottle. But now the sesame oil has left the bathroom for the kitchen, where it will be used with miso and rice vinegar.

In the bath tonight, I let Bea have a couple of capfuls of my favourite orange blossom bubble bath. “Oh Mama, Mama, this smells like you!” she said, splashing around. Annie was already asleep in her crib, with the dusky air coming in through the window. I only had this paragraph left to write in this column. It was all good again. I inhaled the flower smell and kept it in for as long as possible.

For the first time in more than a generation, overweight rates among Canadian children are falling — raising hopes Canada may become one of the first countries to turn the childhood obesity epidemic around.

New figures show the combined rate of overweight and obesity among three- to 19-year-olds fell to 27 per cent in 2013, from nearly 31 per cent a decade earlier.

The rate fell faster among girls than boys, and among younger children compared with teens.

However, while both weight and body-mass-index scores decreased overall, the proportion of children classed as obese — those at the highest risk of diabetes-related kidney failure, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and other weight-related health problems — held steady, at about 13 per cent over the 10-year study period.

“Even though we haven’t seen a decline (in obesity rates) we did see a plateau,” said co-author Dr. Atul Sharma, a pediatric kidney doctor and biostatistician at The Children’s Hospital of Winnipeg.

“We’ve stabilized — and we’re very happy to have stabilized that, because it was exploding.”

Still, it’s harder to turn more severe cases around, and with a quarter of Canadian children still heavier than is healthy, “we can’t become complacent,” Sharma said.

“It’s not over yet — the numbers are still too high and the burden of illness is considerable.”

Between 1978 and 2004, rates of overweight and obesity among Canadian children soared, to about 35 per cent from 23 per cent. “That was the epidemic,” Sharma said. “When those results were published in 2004, it was quite shocking, and prompted a lot of intervention at many levels.”

We may now be seeing the payoff.

For the new study, Sharma and lead author Dr. Celia Rodd, a pediatric endocrinologist who works with children with diabetes, looked at data on just over 14,000 children taken from national health surveys, in which heights and weights were directly measured.

There were equal numbers of boys and girl; 80 per cent were white. They were representative samples of children from all regions and socio-economic classes.

The researchers used 2010 World Health Organization growth charts for Canada. Based on those charts, if a child is above the 85th percentile — meaning he or she is heavier than 85 per cent of their age- and sex-matched peers — they’re considered overweight. Children above the 97th percentile are classified obese.

Compared with toddlers, older children had lower BMI scores. Girls had lower scores than boys. But most of the improvements occurred largely among children aged five to 12.

“It’s the younger children, not the adolescents, who have dropped their body-mass-index scores considerably,” Sharma said.

It’s not over yet — the numbers are still too high and the burden of illness is considerable.

It’s hard to tease out exactly why, from census and survey data.

One factor might be growth charts for BMI that were introduced for the first time by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in 2000.

“Really only 15 years ago did we acquire a tool where we could sit down with a family and say, ‘this is where your child falls on the normal spectrum,’ ” Sharma said.

Weight is a sensitive and touchy subject, he added, and when so many other children are overweight it can be hard for parents to see a problem in their own child. “It gave us a non-confrontational way of engaging the family in discussions around overweight or obesity.”

In addition, prevention and weight management programs — many of them aimed at younger children — “sprang up all across the country” after the scope of the epidemic became clear in 2004. “At all levels the discussions led to action,” Sharma. “We’re seeing the effect of those programs.”

But some of the poor eating or exercise habits were already laid down in those children who are now teens.

In the mid 1980s, “close to zero per cent” of children had Type 2 diabetes, the kind normally only ever seen in adults and that’s related to lifestyle and being overweight.

Today, close to 30 per cent of Rodd’s patients at her Winnipeg clinic have Type 2 diabetes. “It’s a terrible disease at any age, but the children who develop it younger are exposed to it longer,” Sharma said. “With time, they develop all the terrible complications — blindness, amputations and kidney failure.”

Sharma is seeing children on dialysis because of diabetes-related kidney failure. “We’re seeing hypertension due to overweight,” he said.

While others have compared Canadian and American obesity rates using BMI scores, the Winnipeg team went further and looked at waist circumference. They found Canadian children have less central, or belly fat, than American children even 20 years ago.

In addition, a study published last week showed that while rates of childhood obesity and overweight plateaued in the U.S., there has been no decline in any age group. Overall, rates of overweight and obesity combined in children remained at about 30 per cent, a rate that would be higher using WHO criteria. “Thus, Canada appears to be faring better than the U.S. in the war on obesity,” Sharma and Rodd write in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

However, the authors stressed that more should be done to address the socio-economic drivers of obesity, including poverty and food insecurity.

Winnipeg mom Jacqui Kendrick says that earlier this month, she opened her door to find an unexpected guest: a Child and Family Services (CFS) worker intent on checking on the “well-being” of her three children.

Just like when the RCMP scolded a Squamish, B.C., couple last April for allowing their four-year-old son to play naked in the front yard after getting soaked in a playful water fight, no one knows which disapproving neighbour or passerby called the authorities on Kendrick. All we can say for sure is that whoever lodged the objection didn’t approve of Kendrick’s choice to allow her two-year-old, five-year-old and 10-year-old to play together, with no adult present, in the family’s fenced-in backyard.

The children weren’t exactly unsupervised: Kendrick says she always keeps an eye on the kids from the living room windows overlooking the backyard, when she’s not out in the yard herself. She also says her interaction with the CFS worker was so upsetting it brought her to tears. “(The worker was) asking me about if we’ve ever dealt with CFS before, what my childhood was like, how I punish my children,” Kendrick told The Canadian Press.

And to further put the screws to Kendrick, the worker requested a look at where the children slept and what kind of food was on hand in the kitchen. Everything checked out, but the CFS will now be keeping a permanent file on Kendrick, just in case.

Related

As a mother who frequently lets my own three children (ages nine, five and five) play around in the yard while I glance out the windows, I think Kendrick is right to be irritated and worried. Whether a nine-year-old or 10-year-old can responsibly look out for his or her younger siblings for short periods of time depends on the nine-year-old or 10-year-0ld, and on the younger siblings — who may favour quietly picking dandelions, or be prone to climbing fences and dashing into traffic with gleeful smiles on their faces.

Kids are a mixed bag, and an arrangement that constitutes responsible parenting with one child could constitute reckless disregard with another. Parents may not always make the perfect calculation about where to draw the line, but a parent’s calculation is still likely to be less imperfect than that of a random guy walking down the street.

Yet all it takes is an anonymous call from the random guy to land a parent in the middle of an unsettling interrogation and with a permanent record at CFS, even if the complaint was eventually found to have no merit.

If children are to be protected from abuse and serious neglect, we need agencies like CFS to be active and responsive. And as we’ve seen recently with the heartbreaking case of Ezekial Stephan, even a well-meaning parent can make errors of judgment so serious that they cost a young child his life.

GETTY CREATIVE IMAGES

Children aren’t autonomous and they depend on their caregivers to keep them clothed, fed, sheltered, shielded from avoidable dangers and taken care of. If a parent is falling down on any of those counts, I want CFS to be dropping by.

But there’s no reason we can’t insist CFS change how it operates. It needn’t react the same way to an anonymous complaint of kids playing in their own yard as it does to a call from a doctor treating a severely malnourished child.

You can’t throw common sense out the window just because protecting children from abuse and neglect is a serious priority. Doing so ends up freaking out a lot more kids than it saves (children tend to be no less sensitive to CFS investigations than their parents) and leads to defensive over-parenting that smothers kids’ development.

This, fundamentally, is why we need to let parents do the parenting when at all possible. And when you’re looking at a few kids playing around in their own backyard, it’s definitely possible.

National Post
Twitter.com/soupcoff

Marni Soupcoff is executive director of the Canadian Constitution Foundation (theccf.ca).

Seven-year-old Penny is swimming under the July sun when a baby tooth pops out. As her father scrambles to retrieve the wayward fang from the watery depths, the young girl grows anxious, agitated. She’s not just worried about whether the tooth fairy would appear, but because “Mommy’s going to be mad.”

Because important things are supposed to happen with mommy, not daddy, and she gets mad when Penny does anything without her — even homework — at her father’s house.

It’s 2014 and Penny has spent the last two years in the “crossfire” of her parents’ “Cold War” of a divorce; “the worst kind of custody dispute,” according to a January ruling from Ontario Superior Court Justice Alex Pazaratz. After a 36-day trial — a length more common for a criminal hearing than a custody dispute — they’ve spent half a million dollars on lawyers.

FotoliaA recent custody battle in Ontario cost the parents $500,000.

“What will it take to convince angry parents that nasty and aggressive litigation never turns out well?” Pazaratz wrote in a recent follow-up to that ruling in which he awards Penny’s father Davis Jackson $192,000 in costs. The judge lambastes the parents for having “squandered” money that could have been benefitted their now eight-year-old daughter.

He’s a cop making about $100,000 a year, his ex — Eileen — does computer-based “control detailing” earning $30,000 part-time. But the most shocking thing isn’t the eye-popping legal bill on modest means, but the stomach-churning “emotional manipulation” detailed in the lengthy ruling.

From karate classes to soccer matches, Jackson fought for years for even the most basic access to Penny, at one point “begging” Eileen to obey the suggestions of a social workers tapped to facilitate their shared custody.

The judge called it “a ‘perfect storm’ of unbridled, destructive emotions” spun from the mother’s “obsessive, smothering, possessiveness toward their young child.”

There was an explicit finding that mom was emotionally harming the child

“There was an explicit finding that mom was emotionally harming the child,” said Melissa Fedsin, who represented Jackson in his application for custody access. “Dad never would have pursued this if he wasn’t really genuinely concerned.”

While the length and the subsequent bills make this trial stand out, the rancour is unfortunately common, as Pazaratz notes. There are about 1.2 million parents who have ended marriages or common-law relationships, and even the most amicable divorces can be detrimental to their mental health.

The end of a marriage is hard on the parents losing a partner, but children are losing a family unit, a loss that can prompt real grief they can be too young to process, said Jason Carey a counselling manager with KidsHelpPhone. Many callers are sad, even depressed, or have anxiety during a custody battle.

“The majority of the ones we do hear about are the ones where there’s a lot of stress and parents playing the kids against each other,” Carey said.

Most troubling was the persistent psychological campaign the (mother) embarked on

And Penny’s case serves as an extreme example of just that.

“Most troubling was the persistent psychological campaign the (mother) embarked on,” the judge wrote in awarding Jackson custody. “The mind games she has been playing with her daughter cannot be allowed to continue.”

Eileen — whose lawyer did not return requests for comment — would tell Penny “bad things are going to happen to mommy” when she misses her, would do everything in her power to prevent happy visits with the father and say “daddy doesn’t love you” and left her for a new family.

Even something as simple as haircuts exposed the child to unnecessary drama

“Even something as simple as haircuts exposed the child to unnecessary drama,“ the judge wrote, referring to another incident when Penny was worried her mother would be upset she got her haircut with her father. One of her teachers recalled her fretting in class over the new coif, not because she didn’t like it, but because she feared Eileen’s reaction.

It’s just one of many times the other adults in Penny’s life testified about the emotional toll her parents’ war was waging on the little girl. She had headaches and often felt ill, even vomiting from stress or soiling herself before being taken to swap from one house to another. Before a school Christmas party, one teacher asked her why she seemed so upset.

“Mommy and daddy were both going to be there and they were going to argue or fight,” a teacher recalled the then-six-year-old saying.

That was a year-and-a-half after disagreement turned to duplicity. The couple married in 2004, separated in 2011 and co-parented well until the summer of 2012, when Jackson started seeing another officer, his now-fiancée. That’s when “the mind games” started.

Penny was just about to enter senior kindergarten, and her mother used that to keep her from her father’s visits. The girl told one teacher she missed her father, who later that year decided to take legal action just to see his daughter. First, he sent an email to Eileen “begging” her to be reasonable and avoid the legal bills.

Over three years later, Penny lagged behind her peers in school, largely because of the stress of the dispute. Her emotional state remained fraught.

Her father had been awarded custody, so he can make all important decisions, and her mother still got to see her every other week — for the time being.

Pazaratz noted that, most of the time, Eileen was a very good mother, but was also “overt, manipulative, scheming, deceitful and oblivious to the needless family suffering she perpetuated for at least the last three years.”

FotoliaWhen parents put kids in the middle of their battles, it creates lasting damage.

“If the emotional abuse continues, swift and decisive intervention may be the only option. Even if it causes short-term upset for (Penny),” he wrote, ordering Eileen to seek counselling and “get control of herself.”

“It was a really sad case,” Fedsin said. “The strong message that needs to come across with this is case is it’s a no-win situation for anybody” to drag things out in court. “It should never have cost this much.”

“It’s completely driven by parents who are being unreasonable with each other.”

Such cases can be harmful to the psyche of the kids involved. “Parents completely underestimate” the effects of acrimonious custody squabbles, said Dr. Marshall Korenblum, chief psychiatrist at the Hincks-Dellcrest Centre. “It can be extremely detrimental.”

That’s especially true in cases where one child is “brainwashed” against one parent by another. Dr. Korenblum said there a swath of academic literature on “parental alienation.” When the kids grow up, they often end up regretting the alienation with one parent and reunite with the one they were taught to hate. They might feel guilty or ruin their relationship with the parent who discouraged the relationship. They might internalize that anger, and grow up to have issues with, or even hate, the sex of the parent they blame for the breakdown. They’re also more susceptible to depression and anxiety and significantly more likely to get divorced. Many don’t think it affects them later in life, but it does.

Amicable divorces, by contrast, can actually lead to relief among children that the fighting will stop.

“Divorce and separation itself is not a bad thing for mental health,” Dr. Korenblum said. “It’s when there’s a high-conflict or a protracted battle or lots of anger… that it has a negative effect on mental health.”

The Washington PostAn image from an Islamic State propaganda video shows a child saying good-bye to his father before proceeding on a suicide mission.

The boy appears to be no older than 12.

He hugs his father, climbs into an armored vehicle packed with explosives and then kisses his father’s hand before departing on a mission that ends in a fireball on the horizon.

That attack in Aleppo last month was one of at least 89 cases over the past year in which the Islamic State employed children or teenagers in suicide missions, according to new research that indicates the terrorist group is sending youths to their deaths in greater and greater numbers.

The father-son sequence was memorialized in propaganda photos released last month by the Islamic State, adding to an expanding collection of online eulogies that provides insight into how the organization uses children in combat operations and mass-casualty attacks on civilians in Iraq and Syria.

“The Islamic State is mobilizing children and youth at an increasing and unprecedented rate,” according to a report to be published Friday by the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

A copy was provided to The Washington Post.

Militant website via APIn this photo released on Jan. 14, 2015, by a militant website, which has been verified and is consistent with other AP reporting, an Islamic State militant, right, gives a ball to a boy, left, during a street preaching event in Tel Abyad in Raqqa province, northeast Syria. IS extremists have made it a priority to mold children under their rule into a new generation of militants, luring them into becoming fighters, suicide bombers and executioners.

The study describes the Islamic State’s use of children in suicide attacks as part of a broader strategy to cultivate a generation of school-age militants indoctrinated in the group’s ideology and completely inured to its extreme brand of violence.

Since its emergence as a dominant force in Syria, the Islamic State has frequently cast children in roles designed to shock outsiders. A video released last month showed a child in an Islamic State headband pressing the button on a remote control, detonating a bomb strapped to a car containing three accused spies.

But the new study is the first comprehensive catalogue of cases in which the Islamic State used children in missions where they were expected to die.

Roughly 60 percent of the victims were categorized as “adolescent,” meaning ages 12 to 16. None were older than 18, and some were as young as 8 or 9, according to researchers at Georgia State University who were involved in the project.

At least 11 children or adolescents were killed in Islamic State operations in January, compared with six in the same month a year ago, according to the report, “Depictions of Children and Youth in the Islamic State’s ‘Martyrdom’ Propaganda.”

The use of children in combat has often been a sign of desperation, as was the case in Nazi Germany in the closing months of World War II. But researchers said that the Islamic State is not being forced to rely on underage fighters because of dwindling adult ranks.

(Militant website via AP)In this photo released on Jan. 14, 2015, by a militant website, which has been verified and is consistent with other AP reporting, Syrian boys, left, follow an Islamic State militant, right, holding his group's flag, during a street preaching session in al-Tabqa in Raqqa province, northeast Syria. IS extremists have made it a priority to mold children under their rule into a new generation of militants, luring them into becoming fighters, suicide bombers and executioners.

Instead, they said that the group seems to employ children for reasons including their propaganda impact and ability to evade detection, as well as a system of values that regards even young lives as subordinate to the cause of re-establishing a “caliphate.”

“It is striking that children are being integrated into the ISIS war machine not as substitutes but as soldiers and suicide attackers fighting alongside adult [militants],” said Charlie Winter, a senior research associate at Georgia State and co-author of the report.

Winter said that the practice could intensify if the Islamic State loses territory and fighters.

“We know that there are a lot more [children] being recruited than eulogized,” Winter said. “As the military situation becomes more difficult for ISIS in the months and years to come, we’ll see more instances of youths being used on the battlefield.”

The vast majority of the children and teenagers used in suicide missions were from Iraq or Syria, where the Islamic State controls an area the size of West Virginia, according to the report. But others came from the Middle East and North Africa, and at least four were from Western nations, with two from Britain and one each from France and Australia.

The list of underage fighters killed between January 2015 and 2016 was assembled by examining Islamic State propaganda releases that generally did not disclose victims’ real names or ages.

Instead, researchers categorized the youths as adolescent or pre-adolescent based on physical characteristics or other clues.

Of the 89 cases cited in the report, 36 were killed after carrying out operations in which they drove vehicles packed with explosives. Eighteen took part in teams who carried out Kamikaze-style assaults on enemy positions, firing weapons and then detonating suicide belts. Only two cases involved suicide attacks on civilian targets.

Other terrorist groups, including Boko Haram, have tended to conceal their use of children in suicide attacks because of public scorn for the tactic, said Mia Bloom, a professor at Georgia State and a co-author of the report.

The Islamic State, by contrast, “is absolutely advertising it and making it routine,” Bloom said, citing not only the group’s use of children in attacks but also widespread evidence that children routinely attend public beheadings and screenings of propaganda videos showing other children being employed in suicide missions.

“It’s about changing what is considered right and wrong, and making children almost immune to the horrific nature of what they’re seeing” Bloom said.

“It hardens these children and makes them more ready and psychologically available for things they’ll do in the future.”

The researchers did not include the images and videos they examined in their published report, citing privacy issues and a desire to be sensitive to families of the victims. But the study, which was funded through a grant program backed by the Pentagon, refers to images that have been widely circulated online.

Among them are the slide-show-like sequence of the father and his son in Aleppo, as well as an image of a child “wearing his baseball cap back-to-front, sitting atop what appears to be a fairground ride” before he was eulogized as a “martyr” by the Islamic State’s media wing in Raqqa, Syria, the group’s de facto capital.

The toll has grown since the report was completed.

Winter said that five new eulogies for youths were released by the Islamic State on Thursday.

But a Quebec anti-obesity group says the ubiquitous Tim Hortons and Timbits logos on display – on banners, on rink boards and on the jerseys worn by the young ball hockey players at the family-oriented winter festival – is illegal advertising leading children down an unhealthy path.

“I have no problem with Tim Hortons encouraging kids to play outside, but when they use aggressive advertising to place their products, that’s where I have an ethical problem,” said Corinne Voyer, the director of Coalition Poids.

She said research shows that diet plays a bigger role in obesity than physical exercise.

‘When they use aggressive advertising to place their products, that’s where I have an ethical problem’

In a complaint filed Friday with Quebec’s consumer protection agency, the Coalition Poids accuses Tim Hortons of violating a Quebec law that prohibits advertising aimed at children.

Noting that the company also sponsors Timbits hockey, soccer and skiing in Quebec, Voyer said the Fête des Neiges complaint is the tip of the iceberg. “We have not complained yet on those issues, but it is coming,” she said. “We are compiling a file.”

Quebec is the only jurisdiction in North America to ban advertising aimed at children under 13 years of age. Since a 2009 conviction of Saputo Inc., maker of Vachon snacks, for using a cartoon gorilla to peddle cakes to preschoolers, Quebec has become more active in enforcing the law.

McDonald’s was fined $12,000 for a TV ad promoting Chicken McNuggets, Burger King was fined $12,000 in relation to the toys included in its children’s meals and General Mills, makers of Lucky Charms cereal, was fined $2,000 for online games featuring the cereal’s leprechaun character.

Last November, Coca-Cola pleaded guilty and was fined $27,000 for a Fanta Zone water park it sponsored in the La Ronde amusement park, where the Fanta logo was prominently displayed and the games were orange.

Quebec’s law withstood a 1989 test before the Supreme Court of Canada, when Irwin Toy challenged it as limiting free expression. The court ruled that children are not as equipped as adults to evaluate advertising. “The legislature reasonably concluded that advertisers should not be able to capitalize upon children’s credulity,” the court wrote.

A spokeswoman for Tim Hortons did not respond to messages seeking comment Tuesday. Geneviève Boyer, a spokeswoman for Société parc Jean-Drapeau, which stages the Fête des Neiges, said no changes are planned to the Tim Hortons zone during the event’s final weekend.

“The advertising of Tim Hortons on the site currently is not presented in a way to be attractive to children,” she said. Even if children develop a Timbits craving after their ball hockey game, the only product Tim Hortons is selling on site is coffee, she said.

The Tim Hortons complaint is part of a multi-pronged offensive by Coalition Poids. It also filed a complaint Monday against the dairy company Natrel for handing our free chocolate milk to children at Quebec City’s winter carnival. The giveaway was tied to Natrel’s sponsorship of a popular children’s movie, La Guerre des Tuques 3D.

On Tuesday, Coalition Poids joined other health organizations in calling on the Quebec government to require warning labels on sugared drinks.

Modeled after the labels on cigarette packages, the proposed warning would advise consumers that sugared drinks contribute to obesity, diabetes and tooth decay. The groups want Quebec to require the labels on energy drinks, soft drink, sport drinks, iced tea and vitamin water.

Re: Hockey Becoming Canada’s Illness, Cam Cole, Dec. 19.This article talked at length about how expensive it is to play hockey and people are possibly burning their financial futures on a slim hope their kid makes it. It alluded to — but didn’t make a strong point — about the hundreds of thousands of kids who can never play because of this cost. How can we have something that people call a national sport when only the financial elite can participate.

People call Canada a hockey nation. We are not. If we were, there would be outdoor artificial rinks all over this country where natural ice is not feasible. Kids and adults should be able to walk down the street and play hockey for free — like they can for so many other sports played on grass. Until we create an environment where kids can play hockey without coaches, the real joy of the game will not be found.

Isn’t the purpose of sport for youth to instill a love of exercise, competition, camaraderie that a person will keep with them throughout their life? It is not about earning a living or getting a scholarship. Those who have their child in sport for these reasons are missing the point.Brian Henchey, Pickering, Ont.

Western bellwether

Re: Finance Ministers Confront Tough Times, Dec. 21.In the early 1980s, when the destruction of the Liberal National Energy Policy became more apparent, the Pierre Trudeau government came up with many plans to plunder the Canada Pension Plan to create jobs. Big problem is that this resulted in more money needed to be contributed by employers in subsequent years to restore some fiscal responsibility to the fund. This fell to the Mulroney Conservatives and made it more difficult to create jobs as businesses could not afford to hire.

Only the Saskatchewan government is showing any sense in its statements on current proposals. The NEP destroyed the Alberta economy for years and the rest of Canada has not yet learned twe are suffering a real problem when the West is in trouble.Anne Robinson, Toronto.

Education for immigrants

Re: Mideast ‘Firestorm,’ Rather Than Arab ‘Spring,’ letter to the editor, Dec. 19.If, as letter writer Mark Rash suggests, “western values must be seeded and given generational nurture before they become rooted in formerly undemocratic political soil,” do we not need to take this into account when deciding how to get Mideast refugees arriving here to best accept and adapt to Canadian values and culture? Or are we naively assuming by simply landing in a democratic country, they will go through a magical transformation?

To question this does not show a lack of compassion and generosity, but rather an abundance of common sense. There is nothing wrong with putting our own safety first. The refugees should be put through a rigorous educational process that leads to an acceptance of democratic values and a genuine willingness to adapt to our culture.Peter Mannistu, Calgary.

Counting the cost

Re: Where Are The Climate Celebrations?, Rex Murphy, Dec. 19.Will our new “transparent” government in Ottawa tell us how much it cost Canadians to send 380-plus delegates to the climate talk conference in Paris? My suggestion for next year’s conference is to provide government funding only to those delegates at or above the level of a senior cabinet minister. Everyone else pays their own way from all levels of government or government agencies. We could also control the number of attendees by holding climate conference in Cincinnati, Winnipeg or Fresnom Calif., instead of Rio, Paris and Marrakesh.Gordon Tait, Calgary.

Liberal payoffs

They have pledged billions of dollars on behalf of their environmental crusaders to the vague and ideological climate change program, with a bevy of provincial carbon taxes to follow. Large funding increases are on the way for their chief spokesman, the CBC.

There will be massive projected deficits, which are really deferred taxes, to spread largesse that the country cannot afford. Then, there is this undemocratic and illogical move to abrogate the thoroughly sensible First Nations Financial Transparency Act, on top of a blank cheque now being written to cover Truth and Reconciliation programs.

Government financial irresponsibility does not help the middle class in any way. On the contrary, special interest spending (just wait for the coming capitulations to the public-service unions) and hidden spending goes against the interests of all hard working taxpayers. And we are only into the first months of the Trudeau mandate. The future looks scary.Edward Mazer, Onanole, Man.

True joy of Christmas

Re: What’s On Your Wish List?, Dec. 21.While people wear a mask of joy and pretend to be happy during Christmas, in reality the only ones who feel the real joy are corporations that get filthy rich. Anyone else is drowned in an ocean of debt that lead to depression throughout the year.

I wish to see a shift in celebration where people abstain from lavish spending because materialism is not the key to happiness I wish those who celebrate the season will celebrate it differently by trying to rediscover the lost sense of human touch, reach out to the poor and make a positive change around them.Abubakar N. Kasim, Toronto.

End of the nation

Re: Well, That Didn’t Take Long, Lisa Raitt, Dec. 18.When governments interfere with the natural order of wealth and its contribution to society, this is what will happen.

You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

When half the people get the idea that they don’t have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the end of any nation.Marvin Litvack, Toronto.

Topic for Coyne

Re: We May Need A Vote To Decide How We Vote, Andrew Coyne, Dec. 12.We keep being told how terrible our electoral system is, and that while Canada is a great place, won’t it just be that much greater once we “fix” the system? I have yet to see any real acknowledgement that maybe this is such a great place because of the first past the post (FPTP) voting system.

If external organizations continue to rank this country as one of the best places in the world, isn’t that an admission we may already be doing things right? FPTP keeps extremists, left or right, on the fringes; there is no power brokering here as happens elsewhere under more “democratic” systems.
It seems to work — maybe Andrew Coyne could analyze that?Patrick Robinson, Calgary.

Re: Too Young To Be Home Alone, Sept. 18.Whatever one’s view on the maturity of eight-year-olds, the B.C. case has serious implications for parents’ responsibilities. It seems to set a precedent for legally requiring parents or their delegates to supervise children 24/7, 365 days a year, until the age of 10. The state could be required to provide the wherewithal for this level of supervision.

The decision also seriously limits the right of parents to decide how to raise their children and places far more power in the hands of social workers than ever before.

If the state takes on these decision-making powers, its agents — such as social workers, judges, day-care staff, policy-makers and teachers — must take personal liability for the impact of their actions and decisions on the lives of children and their parents. Will they accept the liability that goes with such power?

As it is, only parents have this level of liability for children; all others are virtually exempt. With power comes responsibility or does this principle only apply to parents? Remember, the residential schools in which the state took over child-rearing decisions from parents, wrecked many lives, and the state agents were not held personally responsible.Helen Ward, president, Kids First Parent Association of Canada, Burnaby, B.C.

Behind the veil

Re: A Debate About Nothing, Kelly McParland; The Niqab Decision Is The Thin End Of The Wedge, letters to the editor, both, Sept. 18.My favourite moment of the Republican debate the other night didn’t involve words. It was the look of contempt Carly Fiorina gave Donald Trump after he tried to save himself by complimenting her looks, further digging himself into the hole he had made. It made me think of something beyond the issue: how we purse our lips, how we smile, how we express acceptance or disdain are often expressed without words. It’s a method of human communication beyond reach for those forced to wear those execrable niqabs and burkas.Peter Mifsud, Toronto.

Wearing the niqab or face-covering during a citizenship ceremony is not acceptable. At the moment when a woman swears allegiance to the Queen, she must be prepared to leave her old prejudices at the door and show her face to the citizenship judge so as to corroborate her identity with the records on hand. Covering the face is a sign of contempt and duplicity, considering the gravity of the ceremony. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is right for standing firm on the ban on face-coverings during these ceremonies.

Face-covering represents a subjugation of women to second-class status. It is also a vestige of feudal society that is incompatible with Western ideals. Women in Western societies have already scaled the social ladder, making them equal in status to men. You have to respect the laws of the land and that means showing your face during citizenship ceremonies or when performing a task in the public sector.Edith de la Torre, Montreal.

My family came to this country because of the values it holds toward religious freedom. We went from a country in which we couldn’t even say “Assalam-o-Alaikum” to one where people of all races and religions can practise their faith freely.

Although the niqab ban appears to be unlawful to our government, it is not something foreign to Canadian principles. I can’t help but feel proud Canada made the right choice, despite the pressures it faced. It’s exactly things like this that make people like Zunera Ishaq and countless others feel welcomed to Canada. This great country has created a reputation for itself and continues to live up to it.Abdullah Ahmad, Hamilton, Ont.

Why bother about debates?

Re: This Is Why The Leaders Are Neck And Neck, Michael Den Tandt, Sept. 18.Hopelessly boring is how I would describe the debate, so predictable in empty posturing and void of any fresh ideas. If I hear again “we have a plan,” balanced budget, infrastructure community, etc., I will become physically ill. But what to do on Oct. 19? I for one will be holding my nose and voting for the devil I know.Jan Bartl, Ottawa.

The leaders’ alleged debate was simply unwatchable. I turned it off after NDP Leader Tom Mulcair blew a porch bulb and started yelling over Conservative Leader Stephen Harper’s reasoned statements. But take due note, this was not a proper debate — these functions never are. They are just pronouncements from a script prepared from the list of moderator questions previously circulated.

Mulcair yelling in anger is a scary person to consider appropriate to lead this country. He reminds me of bearded fanatics in the streets of the Middle East. Liberal Leader Trudeau is too young to have developed Mulcair’s apparent bitterness and hate, but in this economy he is still just too young.
David Burn, Toronto.

I actually enjoyed the debate. It was obvious the left-wing Globe and Mail had PM Harper’s microphone slightly turned down, allowing him to be consistently drowned out by the left-wing leaders, but such petty things were to be expected.

It was the consistent dishonesty of the other leaders that struck me — the Liberals’ Trudeau promising massive spending increases to “grow” the economy, without beginning to be honest about how much borrowing, deficit and increased taxation this would cost, and the NDP’s Mulcair, promising almost equal spending increases, yet apparently without any real borrowing, deficit, or increased taxation. Thankfully, there was a responsible, experienced and honest one in the bunch.Iain G. Foulds, Spruce Grove, Alta.

Disagreement on deficits

Re: Economy Doesn’t Care Who Drives, Andrew Coyne, Sept. 17.A billion dollars surplus or deficit or two — who cares?, Andrew Coyne has asked continually during this campaign. Although it’s true a “few billion” are small potatoes compared to gross domestic product, losing perspective is irresponsible and thank heavens Coyne does not run my cheque book.

Like an irrelevant dollar lost under a couch pillow, a second of time is easily taken as an insignificant unit too — the time taken by a blink of the eye. But a billion inconsequential seconds ago, the oldest federal candidate, Tom Mulcair had not been born. A billion insignificant minutes ago. Christianity was in its infancy and if you don’t think much of an hour, a billion hours ago Homo sapiens roamed Ethiopia. In this electoral contest, responsible adults should pay attention to the candidates’ giddy views of a billion here and a billion there. Disregard a dollar, but not a billion.Juan C. Joffre, Calgary.

Coyne keeps repeating deficits don’t matter, a deficit of a couple of billion dollars in a trillion-dollar economy is a rounding error. I would ask what kind of deficit he runs in his household every month? What payments does he make on his accumulating debt at the end of the year? Does he plan on ringing up that deficit every year and passing the resulting debt on to his next generation?

The 2013-14 interest payment of $8.6 billion is greater than the $7.8-billion transfer Quebec is receiving from the federal government for equalization and is only slightly less than the $9.5 billion a year it plans to spend on public infrastructure. That’s billions that could be better spent on programs, services or reduced taxation so ordinary Canadians can spend the money on their families’ needs.Wade Pearson, Calgary.

This has got to be the most ridiculous column Andrew Coyne has ever written. Government policies don’t affect the economy significantly? How about Venezuela, a complete mess, or Argentina? Brazil was doing pretty well until they started electing leftist governments again. Greece is another mess with a leftist government. Closer to home, we have Ontario with crippling debt and out of this world electricity rates strangling manufacturing. Bottom line, it is vitally important people carefully consider who they are electing and what they stand for. Imagine a newly elected NDP government embracing the latest leftist lunacy, the Leap Manifesto.Jonathan Flawn, Oakville, Ont.

Thanks for Philip

Re: The Man Behind The Monarch, Barbara Kay, Sept. 17.This is an excellent coverage by columnist Barbara Kay of Prince Philip, who has also set a record: he’s the longest-serving consort in British history. Considering the number of activities Prince Philip is engaged in, it is a wonder the Queen sees him at all, never mind accompanying her on many trips around the world, including Canada. We now know he does a whole lot more than just go along for
the Royal ride.Fred Perry, Surrey, B.C.

Prince Philip is a truly self-effacing public servant who obviously is much in need of the services of a good public relations firm. But I get the impression he would not want such attention — one of the last of the old, truly gentlemen.Patrick MacKinnon, Victoria.

Gift to opponents

Re: One Giant Leap (Back) For Mankind, editorial, Sept. 17; Mulcair’s Balancing Act, editorial, Sept. 18.Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau should be on their knees, thanking Naomi Klein and the signatories to the Leap Manifesto for the gift that will keep on giving right up to election day. Wow! Poor Thomas Mulcair. First, Klein puts a knife in his back by releasing the manifesto in the first place, then Stephen Lewis slits his throat by saying the document simply reflects existing NDP policy. It all gives new meaning to that adage, “With friends like these …”Jim Bee, Mississauga, Ont.

Your editorial was bang on. Left-wing extremists (no less than other extremists) are psychotic in the true sense, exhibiting grossly impaired reality testing subservient to a delusional belief. However, left-wing extremism is not a mental disorder per se, because the delusional belief is not internally generated, but culturally acquired from public education and the mass media.

No thinking individual could believe in Communism,or its stepchild, Socialism. Repeated evidence accrued over 98 years demonstrates unequivocally both are abject failures, not only economically, but morally and ethically. Soviet Russia, Maoist China, North Korea, Albania, Castro’s Cuba, Pol Pot’s Cambodia — to name a few — all saw wretched disregard for the welfare of the individual, a potential political enemy of the almighty state.

Curiously, the only criticism allowed to be voiced in our politically correct world is against the system that, despite its flaws, has done more to improve the lot of the average human being than all other economic-political systems in history. Karl Marx was incredibly wrong about everything he believed, focusing incessantly on wealth redistribution and neglecting wealth production. A smaller pie results in smaller pieces for everyone, except for the hypocritical elites at the top of the leftist heap.David Nussbaum, Thornhill, Ont.

You claim in your editorial that the Utopian screed gives Mulcair “a chance to reinforce his sober-minded credentials by explaining frankly why it is programmatic and metaphysical nonsense.”

Would those be the same sober-minded credentials on display in Washington, when he railed against the Keystone XL pipeline? Or his musings on polluter-pay and onerous carbon-reduction schemes designed to wean the Canadian economy away from its greatest strength, natural resource development? Or his desire to cancel Canada’s participation in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq & the Levant, a campaign motivated by the horrifying pictures of those caught in its deadly embrace, unable to enjoy the succour Canada offers?

Mulcair and his handlers have done a remarkable job if they have managed to dupe your editorial board into believing his sober-minded credentials are anything
more than an illusion.Darcy Charles Lewis, Calgary.

When British Columbia voters turfed out the NDP a few years ago, bumper stickers told the story: They NDP’d our money away. From an elite fleet of ferries that ended up on the scrap heap to an abysmal keeper of the public purse, this begs the question: can a leopard change his spots?Doris Reed, Cambridge, Ont.

View from academe

Re: Questions On Refugees, Howard Adelman, Naomi Alboim And Mike Molloy; Refugee Plan On Way, Kenney says, both, Sept. 17.While it is commendable to want to help people in desperate need, your writers cause me to wonder if they live in the real world. But they are academics. Totally dismissed is the fact Canada admits 250,000 legal immigrants and 25,000 to 30,000 asylum seekers a year and has been doing this for several years.

All of a sudden, the academics expect thousands of new staff to be hired out of thin air to deal with the Syrian refugee crisis. We could probably open up some detention camps, but this is not an acceptable way to handle refugees. Absorbing refugees with relatives is a real possibility without putting more strain on housing and our welfare system. It is also necessary to vet immigrants, particularly from countries that have anti-democratic and anti-western policies. There are no easy solutions, but any solutions must be well-though-out and practical.Norman Gardner, Toronto.

The internationally acknowledged and even inspirational leadership of now-retired Gen. Rick Hillier was demonstrably effective during his distinguished military career. But with his bold proposal to move about 50,000 Middle Eastern refugees to Canada in less than four months, it’s clear his overarching talents do not obtain, given our current national priorities.

With the looming Oct. 19 federal election, our political leaders must surely realize the risk attendant on adding another plank to a party platform incurring high long-term costs. Our national priorities are addressing too-high unemployment, a barely balanced budget and future business-development spending priorities. Let’s urge them to allow a measured and controlled refugee intake. while maintaining long-established entrance and security standards.Ron Johnson, Victoria.

National Post

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/letters-b-c-case-sets-alarming-precedent/feed0stdChild swingingCMA calls for proof of vaccinations before children can be enrolled in schoolhttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/0827-na-shots
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/0827-na-shots#commentsTue, 25 Aug 2015 22:12:06 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=869132

HALIFAX — Every elementary and high school in the country should require parents to provide proof their child has received up-to-date immunizations for school entry, Canada’s doctors say.

But in a move that could fuel the anti-vaccination movement, delegates to the Canadian Medical Association’s annual general council meeting Wednesday overwhelmingly rejected a call for a national program to compensate those who suffer the extremely rare injuries that can be caused by vaccines.

That proposal was among a raft of motions aimed at combatting “vaccine hesitancy,” a growing phenomenon public health experts fear is driving immunization rates for key diseases below target in many regions of the country.

A critical resolution calls for governments to authorize schools to require parents show proof of vaccination. Those whose children have been “inadequately vaccinated” would be required to meet with public health officials to discuss why.

The proposal doesn’t call for mandatory vaccinations, CMA president Dr. Cindy Forbes stressed. The goal, said Forbes, a Halifax family doctor, is to improve vaccination rates and not inflame the situation by calling for compulsory shots. “We’re looking to have a very reasoned, rational conversation with our patients, and not have a situation where someone is telling them what to do,” she said.

“It’s a way, a checkpoint, where we can take a toll, and say: ‘Has your child been immunized?’ And if they haven’t, it’s an opportunity to provide the immunization” or information to address concerns or fears, she said.

Studies suggest more than a third of Canadian parents wrongly believe vaccines can cause the very diseases they are designed to prevent.

While fewer than five to 10 per cent of parents have strong, anti-vaccination views, “many more parents have doubts and concerns,” said CMA past president Dr. Chris Simpson.

The issue has come under sharp focus following alarming outbreaks of measles — a highly infectious disease that can cause blindness, brain swelling and severe respiratory disease, even death, in severe cases — in the U.S. and parts of Canada. In June, California signed a bill into law requiring nearly every schoolchild in the state to be vaccinated and abolishing exemptions on religious grounds.

Doctors in Canada worry parents are rejecting vaccines out of misplaced fears and deep suspicions of science and Big Pharma.

Simpson said that a declaration of immunization, “coupled with a requirement to meet with public health if it’s not up to date, provides the opportunity to understand why the parent hasn’t fully vaccinated the child.”

Greg Pender/Postmedia NewsOutgoing CMA president, Dr. Chris Simpson

It’s an opportunity, he said, “to fully inform those (parents) who may be hesitant.”

Only Ontario and New Brunswick have laws mandating children receive the full schedule of recommended shots, although exemptions are allowed for medical reasons, or on religious grounds.

“We want to see it done on a national level,” Forbes said.

Delegates rejected a motion for a compensation plan for people who suffer grave injuries associated with vaccinations — a motion partly designed to help allay parents’ fears about vaccine safety.

Should someone suffer the rare occurrence of a severe side effect resulting in a permanent handicap, “we thought they should know they would be compensated for the rest of their lives,” said Quebec physician Dr. Pierre Harvey, a member of the CMA board and seconder of the motion.

The motion was rejected partly due to fear it would send the wrong message to the public that vaccines are dangerous, Harvey said.

“Statistically the risks are very low,” he said. While vaccines are overwhelmingly safe, “we have to be honest. There are side effects to vaccines.”

When his own children were vaccinated against MMR, “I was worried as a parent, ‘Will my kid be the victim — the one in 10 million or six million (who develops) severe encephalitis with this vaccine?

“But if everyone decided not to vaccine their children, we would be back to a situation where we would have tens, and maybe hundreds of deaths yearly in Canada from measles.”

Canada is among just two G8 nations (the other is Russia) without a national compensation system for vaccine injuries (although Quebec has its own program.) Dr. Jane Brooks, from Middleton, N.S., said her brother became deaf after receiving the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Her parents couldn’t afford hearing aids for three years. Brooks said her brother could have benefitted from a national compensation plan and urged the nearly 300 delegates to support it.

Other doctors questioned who would pay for it. “If this is the right thing to do is everybody in the room ready to put in a few hundred dollars a year to make sure we have a national compensation package?” asked Dr. Margaret Burnett, president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada.

The Quebec system has paid out about $4.3 million to claimants since 1988, delegates heard.

A vaguely familiar acronym surfaces in another newspaper and catches our attention: “ARFID.” Surely we’ve seen this one before? It can’t be the same thing as an RFID chip, right? We read on, and find the article is a consciousness-raising exercise — shameless publicity of the sort to which lifestyle sections are inherently vulnerable.

“ARFID” stands for “avoidant-restrictive food intake disorder.” The details begin to swim back into memory. Ah, yes. The clever bastards found a way to medicalize picky eating in childhood.

Maybe you have known, even tried to raise an extremely picky eater — a child who is sensitive to particular items, colours or textures. This personality trait can lead to physical health problems if it is allowed to lead to severe dietary restrictions. (Any personality trait can kill you, if it is expressed sufficiently far to the right or left of the bell curve.) English tabloids will sometimes run horror stories on this theme — features about the bloke who did not receive early treatment for his ARFID and has eaten nothing but crisps or wine gums since the 1980s. The health status of this sort of person is usually “better than you’d think, but not great.”

But is there any such thing, any such actual entity, as “ARFID”? Pshaw! Psychiatry as a profession doesn’t give a fig newton about such a question. The established procedure now is that some enterprising huckster notices a phenomenon of human personality, applies a clever verbal tag and proceeds to do the light modicum of “research” needed to cram it into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). This involves describing a few characteristic features of the new diagnosis — ARFIDs often experience nausea and claim abdominal pain when confronted with broccoli! — and establishing “co-morbidities” — ARFIDs often turn out to be neurotic in other ways, too!

Related

The job is thus all but done. It matters not whether the bulk of the profession accepts that the new diagnostic label has some meaningful existence — some connection to a lesion or other biological phenomenon. (Try finding one for any personality defect!) While your disease-tag is still little-known and controversial, that just means opportunities for “raising awareness.” Once a label is in the DSM, and ARFID is, you can declare yourself a specialist and start offering insurable treatment to gullible middle-class parents. The dose of science-y absolution is included in the package.

You will not be surprised to learn that the recommended treatment for ARFID is “cognitive behavioural therapy,” which, in this context, means rationally convincing a child that he should want to eat a variety of foods and using various tricks and cajoling strategies to introduce new ones. This sounds like what a frustrated ARFID parent would probably try anyway, perhaps after gathering advice from other parents and from books. And the professional advice you (or someone) will have to pay for is not especially evidence-based — it cannot be, since the disorder is still a clinical novelty.

But the advice will sound convincing; it will give you confidence if you need it; it is probably no worse on the whole than what your aunt would tell you; and it is bound to include calming reminders such as: “Under no circumstances should you assault your child with a cruciferous vegetable.”

What a fantastic racket. Surely it is one of the best ever devised; its practitioners hardly disguise that anymore. There can be no objection to it, if we do not mind the spectacular 21st-century teeming of psychiatric labels for unusual children — and, of course, the massive expense that results, whose helpfulness is uncertain and is unlikely to ever be established. We absorb knowledge of the new diagnostic entities, move on and perhaps, hours or days later, idly wonder why health care has such a curious habit of becoming ever more expensive.

An Ontario judge has ruled a kindergarten boy who favours long hair and pink sparkles be empowered to express his gender the way he sees fit, effectively ending a nasty custody battle that involved secrets, threats and a burning pile of girls’ clothing.

Each parent accused the other of forcing the child — referred to in the judgment as “S.” — to conform to a certain gender, with mom painting the child’s nails and referring to S. with female pronouns and dad sending the four-year-old to school dressed in stereotypical boy’s clothes.

The Oakville mother said she noticed her son seeking out girls’ clothes, including “sparkly pink shoes,” and girlie activities on his own accord over a long period.

The Burlington dad said his child was nothing other than a “normal boy” and the mother was forcing the child to dress like a girl, making him the target of bullies at school. The father even burned some of girl’s clothing in a backyard bonfire, reportedly at the little boy’s direction.

Gender expression and gender identity are two different things

Tensions got so high the Halton Children’s Aid Society filed a protection order against the mother, based on reports from S. (given while in his father’s care) that his mother hit him on the knee and forced him to be a girl when he did not want to be.

But after weighing all the evidence — and deeming neither parent particularly credible — Justice Sheilagh O’Connell ruled the child be placed in the care of both parents, spending equal time with them. They must go to counselling and be supervised by the CAS.

“Each parent needs to permit S. a variety of ways of expressing himself and S. should be supported but not encouraged towards any gender preference,” she wrote.

“If the mother is forcing S. to be a stereotypical girl against his wishes, then this no doubt will cause him emotional harm. If the father is forcing S. to be a stereotypical boy against his wishes, then this no doubt will also cause him emotional harm.”

Last fall, the parents consulted Dr. Joey Bonifacio, a general pediatrician and adolescent medicine physician at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children who specializes in gender issues. He met S. and found that while the child was definitely interested in feminine clothes and activities, he was also interested in toys like Transformers, which are marketed to boys.

‘The kid told each parent different things, and sadly that’s not uncommon in high conflict divorces’

Gender expression and gender identity are two different things, he noted, and should not be confused. The child should be exposed to both feminine and masculine toys, activities and clothes, he recommended, and should still be referred to as a boy.

When Bonifacio released his final report in December, the father sent him threatening emails, saying, “I’m going to get a degree in social media and make sure that you are my special project. Because you abuse children and make money off it …”

The father apologized the next day and revealed he, too, had struggled with gender issues as a child, that as a kid he was “so happy when my grandma dressed me in a dress and makeup.”

O’Connell upheld the doctor’s advice, ordering, “Neither party shall unilaterally dress S. as a girl or force S. to take on certain gender roles.”

If S. wants to dress as a girl, whichever parent is present should let the child do so but keep the other parent and the society informed of those wishes, the ruling read. The judge also found S. was not being bullied at school and that staff and students ere supportive of his exploration with gender.

The mother’s lawyer, Robert McQueen, said his client was “very pleased” with the outcome and called the case very “unique” because of the facts.

“I think what comes out of it and what’s important is that parents shouldn’t be interfering with this sort of behaviour on the part of children and they should allow the expression to come naturally,” he said.

The father’s lawyer, Geoffrey Carpenter, noted while the case was “high conflict,” neither parent sought anything drastic for the child, such as reparative therapy.

“The kid told each parent different things, and sadly that’s not uncommon in high conflict divorces,” he said. “In this case, it’s just really sad that the focus of the conflict became something that is so deeply personal.”

He said the family is “getting along better in the aftermath,” and doing a good job of upholding the judge’s order, which was handed down June 1.

The RCMP has warned a Squamish, B.C., couple not to allow their four-year-old to play outside their house, angering his parents and mystifying social workers.

Ian McIlwaine said his eldest son now fears being taken away by authorities. McIlwaine said he was on a business trip when the RCMP visited last week, spending half an hour warning his wife, Marigta McIlwaine.

It became apparent a neighbour had reported an incident a few days earlier, when Tyler, 4, ran around naked while playing with his six-year-old brother, Connor, after his clothes got wet while washing the car.

The Mounties advised Marigta to keep both boys in the backyard if they are nude, or they would have to ‘‘let the courts decide’’ what is best for the children.

After his distraught wife called him, Ian ended his trip early and went to the local RCMP detachment. He was told no law had been broken. He remains unsure which of his neighbours could have reported the incident.

“Everybody compliments me on how well-behaved and well-mannered they are, very polite and they are fun, you know. Everything I do is to try to give those kids a good start; they need the first six years to mean something.”

‘It’s not an abusive or neglectful behaviour, kids are in yard supervised and safe, having fun. It’s mystifying’

McIlwaine said his backyard has a creek, so it is not as safe for his children to play there.

Carol Ross, chair of the child welfare committee of the B.C. Association of Social Workers, said she does not have full knowledge of the case, but there appears little legal precedent for the RCMP’s visit.

“It’s not an abusive or neglectful behaviour, kids are in yard supervised and safe, having fun. It’s mystifying.”

She said she hasn’t heard of cases like this before, and that there would have to be serious allegations to elevate it to something Child Protection Services would investigate. “There would have to be reports of harm, the parents were being neglectful or harmful, and these would have to be serious. It all sounds very unusual.”

Ross says the biggest impact would be on the children’s state of mind. “When there is intervention by police or child protection, there is an impact on the children, you don’t want kids to be frightened by police,” she said. “You don’t want the kids left with any scars for something that was totally innocent.”

McIlwaine said Connor is now frightened of being removed from the home by authorities.

“He was crying because he is concerned now that the police are going to take him and Tyler away because they got naked, and it wasn’t even him, it was just my youngest son,” said McIlwaine. “But God bless him, he stands up for his brother no matter what.”

‘Everybody compliments me on how well-behaved and well-mannered they are, very polite and they are fun’

McIlwaine said he gets along well with his immediate neighbours and isn’t sure who called police. The couple wants an apology from the RCMP.

Squamish RCMP Staff Sgt. Brian Cumming issued a statement to the Squamish Chief newspaper, which first reported the story.

“I have spoken to Mrs. and Mr. McIlwaine, explained that we responded to a complaint from another citizen about their son being out on the street with no clothes on a few days earlier. They did not feel this was handled well by the officers responding despite my explanations, and I offered an apology that they were not happy and felt their son was now afraid of the police,” said Cumming.

“Mr McIlwaine suggested that his son would respond well if given the opportunity to visit the police station and meet the police in more favourable circumstances, and we have agreed to arrange for this to happen in the near future.”

Is there really a child care shortage? That’s the provocative question asked in a new report from the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada (IMFC). The IMFC studied the vacancy rate in Toronto daycares and the results are eye-opening — or at least should be for the politicians currently wading into the child care debate. From the Conservatives’ family tax credits and monthly benefits, to the NDP’s proposal for $15-a-day daycare, the assumption is generally that child care spaces are rare as hen’s teeth. But as the IMFC report shows, they aren’t — and policy decisions, while well-meaning, often become skewed as a result.

The IMFC starts by defining the terms “early learning” and “child care” in a more holistic way than simply “institutional” or “regulated” care. Statistics claiming there are “regulated spaces” for only 20 per cent of children under six years old assume that all such children should be in regulated care. They ignore the fact that even if these spaces were available, many parents would choose, as they do now, to care for their children in unregulated ways — by themselves, or with the help of relatives, a neighbour or a nanny. In Ontario, full-day kindergarten also provides six hours of daily “care” to all four- and five-year-olds, further reducing the need for “regulated” care.

The IMFC concludes that a more accurate measure is that regulated spaces exist for 50% of Ontario kids under six. However, it’s still not clear that parents of all those kids want them in regulated care, and even if they do, it’s not necessarily full-time. Mothers of children under five who work outside the home put in an average of 16 hours less a week than fathers, and 38 per cent are not in the labour force at all. While proponents of regulated care argue that those mothers would all speed back to work full-time if they only had a place to park their kids, that isn’t true: when asked what child care they prefer, parents name themselves, followed by family members, home daycare, and lastly, centre-based care.

As for the infamous child care waitlists, the IMFC found that they are often the result of parents who do want regulated care signing up their kids on multiple lists, even in utero, out of fear of “not getting a spot.” Names don’t get removed even after a child gets a place, resulting in a false sense of shortage. In some areas, there is more demand than others, resulting in localized “shortages,” but these is often more a shortage of what parents consider to be quality care, not necessarily “regulated” care.

In other words, if you build regulated spaces, children will not necessarily come. The vacancy rate in Toronto bears this out: the IMFC found that “between January 2009 and October 2014, the total number of vacancies among all age groups in Toronto daycare fluctuated from a low of 3.58 per cent to a high of 6.64 per cent.” That translates to between 1,877 and 3666 spots. “By way of comparison,” the report notes, “the rental apartment vacancy rate in Toronto as of October 2014 was 1.6 per cent.”

Funding regulated care preferentially to other types of care is also inequitable. On average, every regulated space in Canada receives $4,070 in government funding. Different types of regulated care further receive different allocations, with the highest going to centre-based care. Every unregulated space receives, of course, zero.

The conclusion for policy makers? The laws of supply and demand, equity and parental preference would all point to supporting choice as the most sensible model of child care. In that sense, both the NDP’s and the Conservatives’ plans fall short: the NDP, because it would support the creation of regulated spaces to the exclusion of other forms of care, and the Tories because the financial transfers they created, in the form of the Family Tax Credit and monthly benefits, are inadequate to allow most parents to fully afford the choices they prefer. What the Liberals will come up with remains to be seen, but before they hit the drawing board, they — and all our elected officials — should read this report. If we are going to help families care for their kids, then let’s stop throwing money at the wrong problems — and the wrong solutions.